


ink and synapse

by AmalyaSoramuni



Series: ValhallaBound 'verse-merge [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Associated Colors Are IMPORTANT, Backstory, F/F, Minor Character Death Mention, ValhallaBound, abuse maybe, blood mention, can you see the relationship can you see it, i am so bad at tags, mnem didn't become a badass without some pushing ahah, pre-game, skaia was a bad bad place before the game, there's not much actual hs stuff in here but. still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6839086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmalyaSoramuni/pseuds/AmalyaSoramuni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which a sylph of mind is born.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ink and synapse

**Author's Note:**

> greetings! it's been a while since the other AS and i have posted, so here's some quality pre-game denizen content. and by pre-game i mean pre-creation of sburb. trust me. i hope you enjoy it!

Your name is Mnemosyne Pensee and you- there's no easy way about saying it. You're trapped and that's it. Trapped by everything in this stupid world, in this stupid warring country, in this stupid stifling home of yours.

It's your father's fault, technically. Or not, maybe just a product of having to raise two girls on his own amidst the tumult of a country in chaos. (How long have the two great empires of Skaia been at war? Trick question, no one can remember. It's just a grudge match at this point, Prospit and Derse dueling out of some misguided defense of honor.) He'd always been protective of you and your little sister. Didn't want to lose anyone else after your mother died, only a year after Nike was born. Kept a close watch on the two of you, carefully taught you everything he knew, even before the public schools closed. The war only got worse over the years, and he was always the first to sound the alarm and run to the basement whenever he so much as thought he heard a bomb strike coming. It was easier when you were younger, easier to listen to him, to trust him, your father, fearful but infallible. (And even that impervious persona was a front. You know because you took it up too, for fear of losing face in front of the sister you were supposed to protect.)

And then he was stupid enough to trust you with her.  


The first few times he made grocery runs without taking the two of you, everything was fine. You entertained your little sister, so easily entertained at such a young age. If you'd still been in school she'd have been in, what, the fourth year? She was small and energetic, and you were only just a bit bigger, but somehow your father thought you were mature enough to handle her. He was stupid for trusting you and you were stupid for thinking nothing could go wrong and Nike was-  


You were so stupid. You got in a dumb fight with her and didn't hear the people outside on the street until it was too late. You didn't give her something she wanted (you too selfish and Nike too spoiled) and you screamed and she ran and ran, straight out the front door, and before you knew it there was a little girl caught in the middle of a turf war, gunshots resounding off the houses and buildings, and you guess someone must have missed their mark because you blinked at the sharp crack of a pistol and then your sister was crumpled a few feet from your doorway and you were frozen and you and you and you (stuttered staggered a few steps closer unblinking unthinking)- and you think you might have broken right then and there.  


He was more upset than angry when he came home to a bloodied doorstep and a lonely daughter (not even teary-eyed) who explained to him in a voice that skipped and scratched like a broken record why there were bullets littering the lawn and that they took her away, took the body of your sister with them to cover their tracks and you don't remember too much of the conversation after that. (Only remember that it made you afraid, more afraid than ever before.)  


No, that part of it all was your fault. It didn't take you too long to figure that out. What happened to your sister that day was your fault, yours and your father's for being stupid enough to think that the worst could never happen to your family, that it had already come, but he was wrong.  


There isn't anything good left in this world. It's been a year since it happened and you haven't been allowed outside once, but how can you know if there can be? The world will never stop fighting and innocents will never stop dying and there is no way out because even the neutral islands are disputed these days, and Prospit and Derse will never stop trying to gain the upper hand in their eternal stalemate even if it means slaughtering millions who never asked to inherit a world like this.  


So you'll stay inside, here where your father thinks nothing will ever get to you like it got your sister and your mother. He got worse afterward, clinging to the knowledge that you would be _his_ Mnemosyne, his dearest daughter, the only one he had left. And you understand how he feels, to be down to one last bit of family to hang on to in this broken world of yours, but if only he didn't hang on so tight, if only he didn't keep you locked up trying to keep you out of harm's way, maybe then you'd resent him a little less.  


At least you're not entirely alone. The internet is still a thing, though spotty some days when the landlines get torn up by bombs, when meteor showers come, when something else interferes. You have a Pesterchum account, met some people. Not too many. (So so often, any and all conversations you have with real people out there are so superficially shallow, everyone always so scared of finding out exactly which lines which people fall under that they don't speak of any.) You frequent the message boards every so often. (Programming caught your eye a long time ago. Your father wouldn't approve if he knew what you wanted to use that kind of skill for, it would draw too much attention.) You stay away from social media. Most of it's the government spreading misinformation anyway. Nowadays, you stick to tech and programming and video games and you don't do anything else and you haven't done anything else for so long. You're alone in your room and your father won't let you leave and you have no idea what you're doing.  


One day, some daring entrepreneur leaves a little bag of promotional materials on your doorstep. You remember because your father almost had an aneurysm over it, sure that it was some Dersite scheme to try and spy on the good people of Prospit. A webcamera, instructions on how to join some new social networking site. Your father took it away immediately, tossed it out with the trash telling you something about spies and not being able to trust anyone in this wretched society.  


You found it again later, stashed in your closet. Part of you wonders if you're hallucinating, wants to question this sudden apparition of providence. There are no explanations you can think of. He couldn't have changed his mind, could he? Not someone as paranoid as him.

But now you're here and your father is out on a grocery run with the door shut and locked behind him, and therefore today is the day that you find out if the little thing works or not. And it really is little, so small that you wonder if the camera is real or not, if the tiny microphone will pick up any words you say, or if it's just a cheap hunk of plastic and you're wasting your time. (There was a typo in the promotional blurb, after all.)  


Your hands shake just a little as you hook up the thing to your computer. (You don't want his paranoia, you don't want to be like him, but you can't help but be slightly nervous about this.) The steps are easy, especially for a meticulous mind like your own. It's not like you're unused to this, you've read about so much of this stuff. You make an account with your usual username, 4th3n3 (which is probably dumb but you can't bring yourself to let go of it), log in. Nothing bad's happened so far so you may as well go in and try it. Who knows how long your father will be out this time. You hit the Random Match button.  


A loading screen and a light on the webcam (and for another second the doubt runs through your head), cycling through jargon you only half understand until the screen flashes with a bright and cheery "You are connected to NoctisPrimae! Say hello!"  


The video feed switches on to show the face of a girl that's (you guess) as old as yourself. The eye you can see slowly widens as she looks to the camera, half her face shaded by a curtain of raven-black hair. Red floods her pale face (with surprise?) and she definitely is not saying hello yet but-  


You... you didn't know how you were going to react to seeing someone other than your father for the first time in so long. It's something new, finally, face to face human interaction and so refreshing even after just a second, and all your tension is suddenly just- gone.  


You must have been staring for a bit, because the girl - NoctisPrimae - gets in the first word.  


"Um. H-hello?"  


Her voice is soft, with the tone of someone accustomed to speaking quietly for a long time, so long that they might have forgotten what regular speaking volume was.  


"Hello, yes, sorry about that! Hi." (Oh wow, that did not sound normal at all. You pull a hand through your hair.)  


"H-hi."  


She stares and you stare, the flush slowly leaving her face as you study it, flick your gaze over the background that looks to be her room. Tall shapes loom in the gloom, something angular you can’t quite make out and what looks like curtains strewn over things. She almost seems to blend into the backdrop, her image blue-lit and slightly grainy from darkness. Not hard to keep track of, though, she doesn't move much. Neither of you makes a move to break the silence for a while. (You start to wonder if maybe she's like you, trapped, with yours the first new face she’s seen in ages too.)  


"...Haha, wow, I did not think this through. I have nothing to talk about."  


"Oh.” Her gaze drifts downward, but quickly finds its way back up to where you assume your eyes are on her screen. “W-well then, what do you like? Like hobbies, or books, or... or something."  


“Well, I…” It occurs to you that you don’t actually do much. (Always trapped inside and you hate it so so much.) “The most I’ve been doing lately is teaching myself how to program,” you admit. “Nothing special.”  


“That’s cool, though! I’m not smart enough for stuff like that.” A small huff of a laugh escapes her lips.  


“Then what do you do? Gotta reciprocate here.”  


“Oh, I- I paint. A little bit. Not too good at it.”  


So that’s what the weird shapes are. They must be her easels. (How she managed to get her hands on stuff like that in a world like this is a question you’ll have to ask later.) “Oh, come on, that can’t be true.” Your face twists into a smile. “Let me be the judge of that. Show me your stuff.”  


She flushes red again, her mouth flattening to a line. “Ah, are you really sure, I mean-”  


“Come on, Noctis, show meee.” Hopefully you’re coming off as more eager than teasing. It’s odd to be able to speak someone who doesn’t quite know your every mannerism.  


“Y-yeah.” She pushes herself away from her desk and gets to her feet. (...Wow, she is definitely taller than you expected.) Her thin form glides over to one of her easels and draws off a darkened paper. “Here.” Even with the light, the canvas is dark, very dark, brushed over in swirls of navy blue watercolor, but pinpricks of multicolored tempera paint spatter what looks like a night sky.  


“See, you’re not half bad!”  


“The camera probably makes it look worse than it is. I can’t afford many colors, so they’re all like this. Boring, huh?"  


"No, it looks really good!"  


"Really?" Noctis pulls the canvas away, blinking at you.  


"Yes! You’re an excellent artist, trust me.”  


"You're too kind to me, ah..."  


Noctis ends up having to leave soon after that, but not before you make her promise to show you more of her work another time. And then she does, the two of you following through on it every day that your father ends up out of the house and every night you're willing to stay up late enough that your father can't keep up his constant watch, leaving you to conversations in hushed whispers. You find yourself opening up more and more to her, even though it's stupid to trust anyone in the world you live in. One day, you end up letting loose the floodgates of your thoughts entirely, spurred on by the Prospitian government's newest propaganda stunt.  


"Stupid fucking monarchy, always spouting about how everything's all fine and _golden-"_  


"You live in Prospit?"  


You barely hear her, all caught up in waving your arms, the kind of rebellious drivel packed with revulsion that could oh so easily be labeled treason, but the note her voice hits pierces you. (Slowly, you put your hands back down.)  


"I- yeah, I do."  


Her eye widens just a titch, bites the inside of her lip, drops her gaze. A few moments slip past before she speaks again.  


"I'm- I'm from Derse." (You really don't like where this is going.) "I didn't- does that bother you? I can leave if you want, most people don't like it when people from the other side-"  


"Did you hear anything I was just saying?" you cut her off. "I don't care about that. It's just... lines on maps and ages-old bullshit."  


She stares at you for a few seconds, surprise glittering in her dark eyes. "Th-thank you. Sorry about that."  


"No problem. Just what I think." You manage to relax again.  


"...Hey, what's it like? Living in Prospit?"  


"I wouldn't know much about that, actually."  


"W-why?"  


“I… don’t really get out much. Or leave my house at all, to be honest.”  


“Th-that sucks!”  


"Well, it's my life. And it does suck, yeah." Your voice goes low and you end up looking away for a moment, glancing around the room you've barely left for a year.  


Noctis’s voice crawls in soft and questioning the moment you least expect it. "Is there anything you're going to do about it?"  


"What?"  


"I mean, you seem like the kind of person who'd- I mean, I could never do anything to try to change the way I'm living but you... I don't know. Just from talking to you, you don't feel like someone who'd stay cooped up for this long to me." (And she's right, she's so so right, you're slowly dying being trapped in here, whatever fire inside you had inherited having eaten up all the stale air in this room and is finally suffocating, guttering out.)  


"...I don't know. My dad's really strict about it."  


When she speaks next, it's soft and near silent. "Everyone's scared nowadays. Some people let it chain them down and others find the courage to break free." Silence reigns between you for another few moments. "I might just be being weird but... is there anything you've always wanted to do that you could start working to now? That could make a good start."  


"Why would you want to help me? We haven’t known each other that long, you know."  


"Because... you're a good person, as far as what I've seen. Good people don't deserve bad things, no matter where they live. So I'll help."  


You huff. "Now who's being 'too kind?'" She still has a question you haven't answered. "I guess I've always wanted... I dunno, it's stupid."  


"I'm sure it's not. Tell me."  


"...Tattoos?" (Images of dark dark ink on flesh flash through your head, solid colors and patterned darkness.) "See, it _is-"_  


"No, it's not! That's something you can work to. I think. Is it? I don't know anything, really..."  


"It's not like my dad would ever let me leave, especially not for this."  


"Well then... what else is there to do? You have to do something he won't like. Otherwise you're never getting out."  


A few days of planning and a few more pep talks from Noctis over video call and you think you're ready. The only way you'll be able to do this is under the cover of night, when your father thinks you're still holed up safe in your room and trusts just enough to rest himself. You've checked and rechecked every step, made sure as you can be that the shop you found isn't some kind of trap, that the prices are good, that you won't get an infection or something. (There's a sizable market in your area for this kind of stuff. You suspect that it might just be the few scattered gangs that make full use of it, though.)  


When the low and steady sounds of sleep start to emanate from your father's room, you take the first step from yours. The night outside is dark and cold and cloudy and so so quiet. You pull your jacket and carefully-packed bag closer to you. This is it. The door is open, all that's left to do is set out. There is nothing out there to be afraid of. Nothing at all. You'll be fine. You're better than this. You can do this.  


A shuddering breath escapes your lips, your fear made visible by the chill air. You have just about everything planned out, it's not like failure is certain here. All you have to do is take the first step outside your house. That's literally it.  


Just the first step.  


(For a second, you see on the pavement in front of you the afterimage of a small body with a single hole torn through, watering the lawn with its sweet sweet scarlet.)  


Just the first step.  


(A million what-ifs ring through your mind, and it takes a moment before you realize that they speak with your father's voice.)  


You lurch forward out onto the doorstep. Close the door with as little noise as you can muster. Walk forward out into the cold, cold unknown.  


Your shoes feel so weird and tight on your feet. It's been so long since you even walked any extended distance, but here you are running down the little roadmap you memorized to get to the shop. It's different. It's new. But as excited as you are, the fear still overshadows that feeling, keeping you glancing down every alley and checking every corner for anyone with a gun and the will to shoot.  


The anxiety carries you all the way to your destination, a little hole-in-the-wall of a tattoo parlor, barely anything. No neon light glows in the window, almost nothing to indicate it's even a place of business. You glide up the steps. (You're not even sure if you're dreaming anymore or not. Maybe the bite of autumnal chill on your cheek is just a figment, produced by a years-old memory of simpler times, or maybe that one time the heater broke.) Your hand drifts up, knocks on the door.  


You're met with a stern face, creased and inked, looming so much taller than you. He fills the narrow door-frame, scowling down at you with a cigar. There's a playing-card heart tattooed over his shoulder, the point sharp like a spade. Dark eyes glance you over in your midnight regalia, settle into uneasy eye contact for a few seconds.  


"Whaddaya want, kid." The voice is low, gruff.  


"I-" (Have to calm down, calm down.) "What else would I be here for? I want a tattoo."  


His face twists into a weird scowl. "Kid, go home. It's not safe 'round here." (Echoes of your father's words ring in your ears.) "Better ta-"  


"I want. A tattoo."  


His forehead creases, folding the ink laced into the skin there. With a grunt, he waves you in.  


He takes you through a few formalities, making sure you have a credit number that actually works (not some kid trying to rob him), signing off some vague consent that you're not even sure is an official government document. You show him the pattern in flat black you so carefully stylized from about twenty reference images, and he assures you he can replicate it just fine.  


"Where d'ya want it, anyways?" You pull up your sleeve and point straight for your left wrist. The tattoo artist barks out a laugh. "Seriously? Ya know how much that's gonna hurt, right, kid? Ya don't wanna go for, like, the calf or somethin’? More meat there." You still don't have words, so you just shake your head. This is what you decided and you're not going back on it.  


"...How old are ya?"  


"Thirteen."  


"Holy shit, where’re... ya got the money, kid. I ain't asking more questions like that. Ya sure you want this, kid?"  


"J-just do it." Your voice comes out smaller than you hoped. You hold your wrist out to the artist and let him take it in his huge, warm hand.  


"Don't say I didn't warn ya. Brace yourself, should only take me an hour, give or take thirty minutes." You nod. It probably looks like a jerk or spasm, but he understands the cue.  


Pain washes over you as he starts the first lines, seething lava in every strike of the needle. It's all you can do to stop yourself from thrashing in the chair as the needle hits bone over and over and over, striking a razor-cut of black black ink. He bleeds the circuit patterns down your wrist, careful and angular and sure. You end up looking away, white-knuckled against the edge of the chair, hot tears pricking your eyes like the constant prick of the needle in and out of your skin.  


Time passes anyway, in a blur of white-hot pain and the taste of copper on your tongue (at some point you must have bit the inside of your cheek too hard), and eventually the tattoo artist lets go of your wrist with a weary "Finished."  


He's still grimacing as he taps his payment into the little computer. Carefully and slowly he explains to you the proper methods of taking care of a new tattoo (no nonsense or fluff, just hands you a few hastily-assembled pieces and bottles that you suspect would have fit better in some kind of tattoo-parlor goodie bag) and sends you on your way with a muttered quip along the lines of "kids these days need to sleep at regular times, not ass o'clock in the morning."  


It's no less easy to find your way home than it was to make your way over, but now you have something else to ground you, the slow steady burn of the ink in your wrist.  


The door shuts behind you with a quiet click and you whirl around to meet your father, wide awake and looming above you like a statue.  


"What were you _doing_ out there, Mnemosyne?" your father's voice sounds, quiet and compressed and packed with what might be rage or fear or some combination of the two.  


Fear. "N-noth-" your voice stutters and cuts off. No. You're not going to pretend you're okay with this anymore. "I went out and I got a tattoo. And I came home and I'm _fine."_  


"A _tattoo?"_ he practically shrieks, hands seizing and going straight for his hair.  "What were you thinking, you could have gotten killed! How dare you go out without telling me? Some ruffian could have-"  


"But they didn't, did they?" Your voice is low, cold, electric.  


"Not _this_ time, but Skaia is dangerous, Mnem! Haven't you learned _anything_ from what happened to your mother and your sister?"  


"I did!" The words flash to bright life, jumping from your mouth like arc lightning. "I learned to be careful. And what I've learned from _you_ is to hide from the world just because it fucked you over once or twice! I haven't seen any other human being in a year! Have you considered just how fucked up that is for a kid my age?"  


"Kids your age regularly put themselves in danger!"  


"At least they're _living!"_  


"The only reason why you're still alive because of me, you ungrateful brat!"  


"Sure I am! My heart is beating and my lungs are breathing, but I'm never happy! You've never noticed that, have you? Do you even know me at all?"  


"You're _my_ daughter! I know you inside and out!"  


"Inside and out, huh?” The next words force their way out of your throat in a growl. “You might need to reconsider that statement." You pull up your sleeve and shove your wrist at his face, wincing as your hand passes over the fresh black circuit-lines bleeding from your wrist, the first thing you've ever picked for yourself.  


He goes silent, staring at the raised patterns that still tingle with pain electric. (You're brave. You're brave. You'll stare him down as long as you need to because you've already known worse pain than he could ever inflict.)  


"There's nothing you can do to stop me ever again. I'll just find another way out. I don't care what you do to me, there's barely anything left to take from me here. And if you do, then I'm not sure how long you'll have any family left at all."  


"But you- you can't just go out and- you have no idea what I can do, young lady, I'll-"  


"You'll _what,_ Dad?"  


His mouth flaps open and shut, gasping for air in the wake of what you're sure that he sees as your second-greatest betrayal, eyes wide and staring (and you realize that they're more than a few shades removed from your mint green).  


"That's what I thought."  


Without another word, you pull your arm back to your side and walk straight past him to your room. The door slams shut with the most satisfying _thunk_ you've heard in a while. Your locks click shut, and to be safe you shove your chair up under the knob. Thankfully, it doesn’t sound like he’s giving chase.  


You realize soon after you flop down on your bed that you’re shaking. It doesn’t feel like a bad shaking, though, more like something that arose out of the sudden exhilaration of telling your father exactly how you feel for once, instead of backing down. A smile spreads slowly across your face. You've been out once and you didn't die like he said, and your tattoo will always be there to remind you that you're made of different stuff than him.  


You know what? You think you're going to call Noctis.  


It's been long enough. You pull the chair back to your desk, and your leg jitters as you see that she's online. A click and you have a raven-haired girl staring at you from the other side of the world. You hold up your wrist to the camera lens, still shaking slightly. "What do you think, Noctis?"  


"Ah, uh, it looks- r-really good, um-" There she goes, biting the inside of her lip again. "You can call me Nyx if you want to, it's my name, I mean- uh- y-your tattoo looks really nice..." She trails off from her scattered thoughts, her dark blue eyes flicking back and forth among the circuit-patterns. Both of you end up quiet for a bit. (How much does she trust you, to even feign telling you her real name? (Even so, she doesn't strike you as the lying type.))  


"It's Mnemosyne."  


"Huh?" She seems to startle, meeting your eyes on the screen again as you lower your hand.  


"My name. Gotta reciprocate, right?"  


"Oh." She's got a few pretty obvious physical tics, covering her mouth with her hand like that along with everything else. When the hand does come down, you see that she's smiling. "That- that was so brave of you."  


"What part, the tattoo or my name?"  


"Both. Oh yeah, has your dad found out yet?"  


_"Has_ he? He was at the door waiting for me when I got back." A little gasp and her smile vanishes into a worried o.  "No, it's fine! I totally shot him down when he tried to lecture me about it. It was awesome."  


"You're amazing, I could never do anything like that..." The smile returns to her face and one of her hands slips under her dark hair-curtain to hold her head up.  


"Oh, hey, wanna talk on Pesterchum later? If you have one, I mean. I'm surprised I haven't gotten around to asking you about it yet. Mine's ghostlyApostle."  


"allocatedAndromeda," she says without hesitation, until she speaks again. "...There's this group chat I'm part of, invite-only. You want in? I'm sure they'd like you, they're not bad people. And you're- cool and stuff, you'd fit right in. No real names though. A couple of them have preferences."  


"It's all good, that... that sounds really nice." You sigh, and her eyebrows lift at the sound. "If you're sure they'd like the company of a social recluse who only goes outside to get tattoos."  


"Ehehehehe!" Her face breaks into a smile and you grin. (Nyx's laugh is something quiet and deliberate, a piano medley sung to the stars.) "But- but seriously, you're way cooler than that. You shouldn't sell yourself short."  


"Well then, neither should you, little miss Van Gogh!" That earns you another little peal of laughter.  


The two of you end up talking far into the night, about far too many things, and your father doesn't interrupt you even once. By the time you say your good-nights, Nyx is still smiling for once, although tiredly; and you, well. You can't seem to shake the grin that has planted itself very firmly in the middle of your face. (Nyx even suggested that it might look a little cooler with a pair of snakebites.)  


The next day brings another set of introductions to a few more Skaian misfits who show you no less warmth than they do welcoming Nyx online. There’s this purple kid who cracks jokes between Minecraft screenshots, a bright orange one who uses way too many exclamation points all the time, a red one who keeps these really weird hours but somehow keeps tabs on everyone, and these two gray and maroon dorks who seem really intent on getting everyone to read this specific book series that you’re pretty sure is banned in Derse. They’re… surprisingly good people, with barely a dull moment between all their excitement. Your father would hate them. You think they’re fantastic.

So you have a project to give you forward momentum (scraping together the cash to go out again, because there's no way your paranoid father will keep the same credit number after all this) and new friends to see you along the way (a little rainbow of handles starting to build in your Pesterchum) and now that you've been out once, there's that much less of the old fear to keep you from going out again. You'll style yourself into someone you can be proud of, someone your sister could have been proud of, someone not afraid to take a risk, someone who can see the possibility where anyone else would see a dead end or a cage.  


Your name is Mnemosyne Pensee and you think your future might be getting a little brighter every day.

**Author's Note:**

> more character info is over at my art tumblr riseofthedenizens, wow i need to post more there  
> i hope you all have a nice whatever time of day it is where you live!  
> -amalya


End file.
